You’d be forgiven if you thought I was talking about the Nativity story in first-century CE. I’m talking about right here, right now.

It isn’t so much that these stories happened, as that they happen.

It turns out, a first-century CE refugeemother, her partner, and their problematic, prophesied, poverty-crushing, progeny have alot to say to us right now.

Clearly, our planet is in need of a Christmas miracle.

The question is, where should we look?

If in Advent the waiting is, indeed, the hardest part, what are we waiting for?

Let’s look back to look forward. In first-century Palestine, a young unwed mother was told she would bear the Divine. Her homeland was under imperial occupation; her social standing and familial status was uncertain. So what did she do when she received word that she’d become Theotokos, bearer of God-with-us?

Mary of Nazareth couldn’t contain herself:

With all my heart I glorify the Lord!In the depths of who I am I rejoice in God my savior.God has looked with favor on the low status of God’s servant.Look! From now on, everyone will consider me highly favoredbecause the Mighty One has done great things for me.Holy is the Name.God shows mercy to everyone,from one generation to the next,who honors God as God.God has shown strength with a mighty arm.God has scattered those with arrogant thoughts and proud inclinations.God has pulled the powerful down from their thronesand lifted up the lowly.God has filled the hungry with good thingsand sent the rich away empty-handed.God has come to the aid of God’s servant Israel,remembering Divine mercy,just as was promised to our ancestors,to Abraham and to Abraham’s descendants forever.
– Luke 1:46-55 (Inspired by the Common English Bible)

In 20th-century Germany, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a theologian, instigator, and (ultimately) martyr against Hitler’s Nazi Party’s co-opting of God and country, drew inspiration from Mary’s defiant prayer for a decidedly different kind of Christmas. He said:

The song of Mary is the oldest Advent hymn. It is the most passionate, most vehement, one might say most revolutionary Advent hymn ever sung. It is not the gentle, sweet, dreamy Mary that we so often see portrayed in pictures, but the passionate, powerful, proud, enthusiastic Mary, who speaks here. None of the sweet, sugary, or childish tones that we find so often in our Christmas hymns, but a hard, strong, uncompromising song of bringing down rulers from their thrones and humbling the lords of this world.
– From Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Christmas Sermons, edited by Edwin H. Robertson.

Bonhoeffer drew Christmas strength from this uncompromising carol – a song not likely to be piped in as mall muzak to mollify the masses. Mary’s melody inspiredBonhoeffer and his Underground Seminary to release their religious pretense and practice the arcane discipline of ‘prayer and righteous action’ – a faithfulness in the face of what looked like impossible odds.

Theirs were testimonies of resistance to the violently fashionable Christianity that was making Germany great again.

Girded with Mary’s Christmas carol of hope and resistence, and the Son that it heralded, the steadfast of Germany’s Confessing Church movement stood against genocide and the totalizing hijacking of faith for nationalistic ends – even unto death.

It’s not so much that it happened, as that it’s happening.

Once again, our planet is in need of a Christmas miracle.

The question is, what are we waiting for?

In this same plot of Germanic land where Bonhoeffer dwelled, some seven centuries prior, the Dominican mystic and preacher Meister Eckhart lived through a similar period of upheaval and need for fulfilled hope. In direct response to their own dire challenges, he asked his 13th-century Rhineland community:

What is my name? What is your name? What is God’s name?

He answered his own questions in this way:

Our name is: That we must be born. The Creator’s name is: To bear.The soul alone among all creation is generative like God is. We are all meant to be mothers of God.

What good is it for me that Christ was born a thousand years ago in Bethlehem, if he is not born today in our own time?

About Mike Morrell

Mike Morrell is the collaborating author, with Fr. Richard Rohr, on The Divine Dance: The Trinity and Your Transformation. He's also the founder of Wisdom Camp, a retreat for mystical misfits, and a founding organizer of the justice, arts, and spirituality Wild Goose Festival.
Mike curates contemplative and community experiences
via Relational Yoga, the ManKind Project, and Authentic North Carolina,
taking joy in holding space for the extraordinary transformation that can
take place at the intersection of anticipation, imagination, and radical
acceptance.
Mike is also an avid writer, publishing consultant, author coach, futurist, and curator of the book-reviewing community, Speakeasy. He lives with his wife and two daughters in Asheville, North Carolina.

Thank you for this, Mike. It’s been a dark Christmas for many, but it was a dark season for Mary and Joseph too. A good reminder that birthing comes with birth pangs; with political and economic uncertainty, even to the point of forcing exile. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot put it out. If it is of God, it will come forth regardless of the circumstances.

Thank you for this…it is beautiful and so pertinent to the teachings we are receiving. Thank you for your reflection and soulful provocation to this deeper thinking of Christmas as it relates to our world today.

God bless you and your family! I look forward to further chats with you when we meet again.

You are right about real power that comes to us from the Creator when we align ourselves with His righteousness. It seems a little hazy suggesting that anyone with whatever set of values can rise up successfully against powers-that-be.

I believe the power you describe as the “Bible Belt buckling on democracy” has right on their side! Let’s see the power of God take down this political correctness! What is right is not determined by democracy. Our Creator has the right to say what is right and wrong! Let’s all be on the winning side! (I read the end of the Book.)